First, this is a beautiful, inspiring, awesomely written story. At 41, after 15 hours of hard labor, including back labor, my midwives had me squatting and pushing my baby’s head against my 3 cm dilated cervix. Six hours later it was still at 3 cm, and I still tried to do natural birth after we went to the hospital. Alas, it never dilated more, so during the emergency caesarean, I told the anesthesiologist to let me be able to feel the baby come out. He did. While I didn’t get to experience transition, most of my labor was mediation and visualization, and it was definitely an altered state. Thank you for evoking the memories.